Hours of Gladness

by Thomas Fleming

  “How are we gonna get it from Tommy Giordano?” Mick said, his eyes widening. He had heard Bill O’Toole denounce Giordano as the worst slimeball in America.

  “We’re either gonna get it from him—or get something else. Something like this.”

  O’Toole picked up his gun and placed it against his temple. For a moment he was tempted to pull the trigger. It would be easier than going to see Tommy Giordano. It would be easier than lying to Mick this way. Mick—the substitute son who thought he could play it straight in Paradise Beach under Uncle Bill’s guidance.

  Revenge steadied O’Toole. He was not going to die until he had killed Melody Faithorne and Leo McBride. “Here,” O’Toole said, handing Mick the $1,000 bill. “Take Kilroy to Atlantic City to get laid and work on him. Tell him how O’Gorman laughs at him behind his back. Treat him like a piece of shit—as if you think he’s no more of a hero than Leo McBride. Get him drunk and see if he spills anything about where they’ve stashed the money.”

  “What if it’s some sort of Mafia double cross, Uncle Bill? They blow Joey away and we’ve got to cut a deal with them that will give them half the town.”

  Mick was not stupid. Bill O’Toole kept forgetting that. Mick was troubled, depressed, unhappy, but he was not stupid. He saw exactly where they were going. But it was too late to worry about Mick. It was too late to worry about anything anymore. Bill O’Toole only wanted two things out of life—his slice of happiness, and revenge. He was going to get both, no matter who got hurt on the way.

  “If you get that shrimp to talk, we won’t have to go near Tommy G. Do it tomorrow. That’s an order.”

  The haunted, hunted look was in Mick’s eyes. Bill O’Toole was not the only one who thought about getting far far away from Paradise Beach and life with one big unhappy family. But Mick was still a marine. He obeyed orders even when they did not make sense. He grabbed the $1,000 and stalked out of headquarters. He all but stripped the squad car’s gears as he pulled away.

  BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

  Over the causeway into the Pines drove Father Dennis McAvoy, better known elsewhere as Captain Arthur Littlejohn. His position was more and more precarious and he knew it. There had to come a time when Father Hart would chat on the telephone to someone in diocesan headquarters in Trenton and casually mention how well Father McAvoy was coming along. They would inform him that Father McAvoy was an impostor. Hart would tell his friend O’Gorman and the guns would be on the table.

  Yet the risk continued to be worth the chaos Littlejohn was sowing among the Paddys. Planting the $1,000 bill in the young cop’s car was only the beginning. He wanted to turn them into a mare’s nest of raging suspicion. Eventually they would start shooting each other, as the Irish were wont to do. After five centuries of informers betraying Ireland for British gold, every man was suspect.

  Meanwhile, he had to pretend to be the eager collaborator with Father Hart in his pastoral tasks. He had begun making calls on the housebound and bedridden—most of them old. He had listened to litanies of complaints against visiting nurses, overcharging doctors, absentee daughters and sons. He took their minds off their troubles by talking about Ireland. SIS had supplied him with dozens of Irish jokes. Many were drawn from newspaper clippings of pithy comments by public figures, such as the outspoken bishop of Galway, a fierce critic of the IRA, among other things.

  Father Hart heaped praise on McAvoy’s visits. Hart had received telephone calls telling him that the “little Irishman” was the best thing that had happened to St. Augustine’s Parish in a decade. This unsought praise had a strange effect on Father Hart. He began to confess his deep feelings of inadequacy as a pastoral visitor. He was no good at making small talk. He had lost the Irish gift of gab. This morning Father McAvoy had received a more serious assignment. Hart had asked him to visit the Vietnamese woman who was being abused by her husband.

  Littlejohn-McAvoy remembered that Desmond McBride had suggested the Vietnamese husband, Phac, as a crewman on the boat that was going to bring the guns ashore. Maybe he would find an opportunity to include him in the web of suspicion. Father McAvoy, aka Captain Littlejohn, had another $1,000 bill in his wallet.

  Following Father Hart’s directions, he found the mobile home in the trees without difficulty. But a knock, a second knock, a third knock, went unanswered. He walked around the house, if it deserved to be called that—it looked more like an abandoned railroad car—and peered in a window. A Vietnamese woman was kneeling in the middle of a small room before a crucifix. The woman’s arms were outstretched, her head flung back. Her oval face was blank with ecstasy.

  Littlejohn-McAvoy stood there for at least five minutes, transfixed. St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the greatest mystics of the Catholic Church, had prayed that way.

  Finally, almost embarrassed, he tapped on the window. The woman sprang up, saw him, and rushed to open the front door. “Good day, Father,” she said with an atrocious accent.

  “Hello,” Littlejohn-McAvoy said. “I’m sorry to interrupt your prayers.”

  “Oh, that not prayer. Please do not tell anyone about that, Father. My husband be … angry.”

  “Why should he be angry at you praying?”

  “He say I too bad—too unclean to pray. I only make God more angry against us. So I don’t pray, Father. I close my eyes and say nothing, think nothing. Sometimes Jesus come to me and I ask him to ask God for mercy, forgiveness. I let him pray for me.”

  “For what?”

  “Oh, forgiveness for many sins, Father. Many bad sins. Come in.”

  He found himself sitting in the minuscule kitchen while she fixed him a cup of tea. “You priest—from Catholic relief?”

  “No. I’m from the parish. I’m a friend of Father Hart. Staying with him for a few weeks.”

  She sat down and forced a smile. After another struggle, she managed a whopping lie. “Good, Father Hart. Good priest.”

  “Oh, yes,” Littlejohn-McAvoy said, mentally adding, good and stupid.

  “You—no like?”

  Was she a mind reader? “No, no, he’s been very kind to me. I’m … a sinner too.”

  Suddenly the words echoed as if he had shouted them in the middle of York Minster, the great cathedral in the city of his birth. I’M—A—SINNER—TOO. The echoes rolled out beyond the confines of the tiny kitchen, beyond the surrounding forest, beyond this strange American continent. They reverberated through vast reaches of outer space.

  “Woman?” she asked. “In Quang Tri province, some priests … have woman.”

  “No,” he lied, trying to deny the prostitutes he had screwed in Dublin and Belfast on reconnaissance. That was not Captain Arthur Littlejohn RA who had done those things. That had been the other self he assumed in defense of the realm.

  “In Binh Nghai, my village, our priest—good. Father Nhu very good. Very angry against sinners like me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Oh—Father.” Across her face passed an expression that could only be described as totally feminine. “I was … unclean. Like Mary Mag—Jesus’ friend?”

  “Mary Magdalene?”

  “Yes. Like her.”

  “Jesus loved her very much.”

  “Yes. I hope he love me too.”

  “He does.”

  “Oh, no, Father. Not yet. I have much more pain to suffer. For my country, for Suong. For Phac.”

  “Is that why you let him beat you?”

  “I let him because I sin against my country. Against him and Suong. Phac was … how you say … patrit?”

  “A patriot?”

  “Yes. He fought communists. I foolish, stupid woman. I let love—and obedience to father—ruin my patrism.”

  “You worked for the communists?”

  “Yes. Now I see how bad that was, Father. I see what they do to my country. It was a bad sin, Father.”

  “Why did Phac marry you?”

  “Oh. After my father … die, he ma
rry me to show his good heart. To show he could rally me.”

  “Rally?”

  “Yes. That what government call it. To rally people against communists. You went for education. You heard how bad Viet Minh were. That when I see how bad I was, Father. That when I say, yes, I will marry Phac.”

  “Why does he beat you?”

  “Oh, I think his heart cannot love, Father. Before he came to Binh Nghai, Viet Minh kill his wife and three sons. Only Suong escape. Also—another reason.”

  “What?”

  “I save Phac, Father. I save him and Suong. That wounds—”

  She pointed to her heart. “If he saved me, all would be okay. But I save him. Unclean woman save him. I sinned to save him.”

  Suddenly there were tears pouring down her face.

  “You were one of the boat people?”

  “Yes. Boat. Pirates capture us. I save him and Suong. I let them … do me. This many, Father.” She held up the fingers of both hands. “They do me again and again. Before they finish, British boat come and shoot them.”

  Littlejohn had heard such stories from one of his SIS friends who had become station chief in Singapore. They were all enraged by the bestialities inflicted on Vietnamese refugees on the high seas. But the Royal Navy had nothing east of Suez now except a few frigates at Hong Kong. The days when the British enforced law and order in the Pacific were gone, and the Americans, as usual, did nothing to fill the vacuum.

  “Oh my dear,” he said, and took her hand. “And you went on loving Jesus.”

  She looked at him with a new expression on her face. Was it condescension at his stupidity? The memory of her rape by the pirates had shattered her surface calm. She told him the truth now.

  “Oh, no, Father. You no understand. Until then—I hate him. I hate Jesus. I think he kill my father. I hate our priest, Father Nhu. I … hate Phac. I marry him only because when Mick leave Binh Nghai, Phac will kill me. Only when pirates are doing … to me … Jesus came. He came into me, Father. I hear his voice and my father’s voice whispering together. I hear their saying, ‘By waters of Babylon. By waters of Babylon.’ I don’t know what it mean, Father. But it fill me with … happiness, Father. Do you understand?”

  “Yes—and no.” Littlejohn-McAvoy suddenly had an overwhelming desire to fall to his knees and kiss the sandaled feet of this tiny, weeping woman. He wanted to cry out, O Lord, I am not worthy. He wanted her to lift him up in the name of Jesus and the Virgin and Mary Magdalene, in the name of all the impossible contradictions that lived together in the world’s tormented heart.

  “What ‘waters of Babylon’ mean, Father? Will they make me clean?”

  “Yes. It’s from a psalm of King David. About the Jews living in captivity in Babylon. He asks God how he will sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.”

  “What … God answer?”

  “He didn’t answer. Later, much later, He destroyed Babylon. Maybe that was an answer.”

  “Ah. God is … angry, I think. Like Father Nhu.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “But Jesus, no. Jesus love, Father.”

  “Yes. Yes. Trust in his love, Mrs. Phac.”

  “Oh, Father. You understand. Will you explain to Father Hart?”

  “Yes. I’ll explain. Don’t worry about it anymore.”

  Littlejohn-McAvoy stumbled to his car and sat behind the wheel for a long time. He took out the $1,000 bill and stared at the portrait of some nineteenth-century American president in the center of it. It would have been simple to ask to use the bathroom and leave it there. Or to pretend an interest in her marooned railroad car and tuck it between the cushions of the couch while she was showing him around, then make an anonymous call to the police chief. Now it was impossible.

  What was happening? Was she a precursor? Was she telling him that beyond the veil of tomorrow there was similar suffering, similar humiliation for him? Why else had he understood, why else had he seen the beauty of her soul? She had entered the kingdom that he had once dreamt of entering. A kingdom that his father with the voice of God had denied him, when he ordered him to join the army instead of the priesthood. Was she telling him that the kingdom still awaited him? Or was she informing him that it was irremediably beyond him now?

  Captain Littlejohn thought of Maeve Flanagan and Jackie Chasen spread-eagled on their beds. Why did that image fill his soul with dark pleasure? The same pleasure that bubbled like witch’s brew when IRA men in Armagh cried no, no while the Chinese Type 64 silenced clicked death. Sullenly, bitterly, Littlejohn refused to disavow that pleasure, to exchange it for pain.

  Trai Nguyen Phac had not sought the pain, of course. She had begged God to prevent it. But God had not listened. He had a hearing problem. He let Jesus take care of the suffering. Captain Littlejohn wasn’t sure about Jesus. He was even less certain about Mary Magdalene and the Savior’s enthusiasm for a woman of the streets. His soul was filled with angry doubt as he drove back over the causeway to Paradise Beach.

  That night at dinner, Father Hart virtually levitated when Littlejohn-McAvoy told him that he had talked to Mrs. Phac and her husband, who happened to be at home, ill, and he had contritely promised not to abuse his wife anymore.

  “You obviously have a gift when it comes to dealing with third world people like that,” Father Hart said. “I guess it comes from growing up in a simple world like theirs. In contrast to our overcommercialized, machine-made world, with a television set blaring nonsense in every room.”

  “Perhaps,” Littlejohn said. One of the first things you learned in the intelligence business was to bear fools patiently.

  “Have you read Gutierrez or the other liberation theologians?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “You should read them, Dennis. They’re the hope of the world. They show how Marxism can be reconciled with Christianity. How Marx, in some views, may even be a reincarnation of Christ.”

  “Doesn’t that fellow Marx preach hatred instead of love?”

  “Class hatred is not the same as personal hatred. Class hatred is really a hatred of injustice, which every Christian ought to have. Once you see the world from the viewpoint of the oppressed, all sorts of things change. There’s no such thing as individual guilt, for instance. The poor don’t sin. The revolutionary doesn’t sin when he strikes at the oppressors. The sin is on the other side.”

  “I see.”

  “I’ve been thinking of volunteering for missionary work in South America. We send priests to several parishes in Guatemala and Brazil.”

  “I admire your courage. I don’t think my nerves could handle such a challenge, at present.”

  “You’re happy here, aren’t you? The people are happy with you. They like you more in a week than they’ve learned to like me in twenty years.”

  “Now, Philip. If I stayed here twenty years they’d find plenty of fault with me too.”

  “I doubt it. I need a challenge to make my priesthood meaningful. You should have been over here during the Vietnam War. That was a meaningful time. You felt a moral purpose in your life, every day. A sense of mission. I’m dying of boredom here, if you want to know the truth.”

  “A pity. Maybe you should apply for the missions. But I’d think it over for a week or two.”

  “No. I’m going to call the archbishop tomorrow to see if there’s an opening. He may be a lot more amenable when I tell him how well you’re doing here. I’ve got a ready-made replacement!”

  “I wish I could say I was ready, Philip.”

  “You will be in a month. It’ll take a month for the archbishop to make up his mind. It takes him a month to decide anything.”

  As he spoke, Father Hart’s face had undergone a remarkable transformation. He seemed to grow younger and younger before Littlejohn-McAvoy’s eyes. Soon he was facing the boyish seminarian who had pleased his mother so much by becoming a priest and disappointed his father by becoming an antiwar protester.

  “I’m flattered by your confidence in
me,” Littlejohn-McAvoy said.

  It was time to move Father Hart offstage. It had always been a possible if extremely risky option. In Littlejohn-McAvoy’s suitcase was a variety of potions that could remove him permanently. But that would cause severe complications. For the time being, it would be better if he simply fell ill. A raging fever and other debilitating symptoms. Father Dennis McAvoy would become the acting pastor of St. Augustine’s Parish.

  Acting pastor. Littlejohn rather liked that. Too bad there wasn’t someone with whom he could share the joke. If it was a joke.

  GLITZ

  “Come on,” Mick said. “We’ll live it up.”

  “I don’t want to go near that place,” Jackie said.

  “Joey Zip’s not gonna bother you anymore. Nobody’s gonna bother you with me around.”

  That was undoubtedly true. But Jackie still resisted the idea of going to Atlantic City. The stage shows were too boring, the food too bland, the gambling tables too seductive.

  “Come on. We’ve got a thousand bucks to blow. You can hear all about guerrilla war in Belfast from Kilroy the great.”

  Mick had told her they had found one of Zaccaro’s $1,000 bills on the beach. He had orders from Chief O’Toole to get rid of it and keep Kilroy happy in the bargain.

  Jackie sensed that Mick was not really enthusiastic about going to Atlantic City. He was in one of his who-gives-a-damn moods. She did not like him around in one of those moods. She especially did not like making love to him. All he wanted to do was tricks, the more outrageous the better. That was not the kind of sex that satisfied the new Jackie, the woman the girl in white wanted her to become.

  But Jackie was tempted by her old fascination with wars of liberation. When she had gone to Hanoi with the student peace delegation in 1969, she had bedded a North Vietnamese colonel after listening to him tell her over dinner how he had annihilated an American outpost in Quang Tri province. It had been one of the most unforgettable experiences of her life. Not that he had been very great, sexually. She barely felt him inside, compared to Mick. It had been the idea of connecting with the world revolution that was being created out there, the apparently irresistible force that was destroying the American war machine.